Hey guys. I've got a Fiat Brava, 1242cc 16v engine, 14" steelies, with A/C which unfortunately has got a leak and everytime we fix it it stops blowing cold after a while.

I found a great classified very close to me. For 300euro I can pick up a Fiat Marea 1.6 ELX that supposedly has got a running engine and gearbox and 20,000km ago it had had its cambelt changed and valves (?) fixed. It also looks like it's got a nice set of alloy wheels I could put in the Brava.

Now, assuming the car runs, the A/C blows cold, the wheels arent cracked etc, if I give both cars to a mechanic is it possible to take the ecu, wiring loom, engine, gearbox etc and swap them to the Brava? Will it be very difficult?

Also, for the heck of having an easier job and costing less, is it possible that the ecu/loom/gearbox of the 1.2 can fit the 1.6? Will there be any drawbacks?

And lastly, the Brava is the base SX model, while the Marea is the ELX model. Assuming its in good condition, can I put all seats and door trim from the marea to the brava? Is it also possible to take the front bumper,fog lights and the switch from the marea and put them in the brava easily?

Thanks in advance, if you need me to check anything out in the brava engine bay etc tell me and I'll happily do so!

http://www.car.gr/classifieds/cars/view/7915732/

This is the classified, check out all the pics clicking "Μεγαλυτερες Εικονες"

Why, the 1.2 isn't a bad engine and that marea is "pre-facelift". Engine needs its own wiring loom and the immobilizer changed over. As for the AC, just find the leak with dye.

To put that into scale, I paid 450e for 1.6 weekend with A/C that I bought for spares and it was nowhere near that bad.
Driving 155 20v weekend with working A/C that I didn't even pay twice that. A/C broke a year back and I just transferred one pipe over.

For seats: not sure, brava has the brace in back seats, where alteast in weekend the backseats are completely separate, I would not trust that interior to be totally trashed(+mold) as there are no pictures.

If you transfer that 1.6 over, you also need to change the front and rear brakes from marea as they are bigger (atleast in here as otherwise it will not pass inspection).

Neverth
Not a bad engine in terms of reliability or fuel economy, however it's slow despite the Brava's low weight. I've been in 1.1L Peugeot 106s faster than this

Well, since we're already gonna have a working 1.6 marea, would swapping the needed parts over be a huge deal? Many human hours? As long as our mechanic has got both cars, isn't the swap possible fairly easily? Does the transmission need to get changed too? Would we benefit from that? Even more man hours?Bigger brakes are good, so even if law here may not require it, why not?

Also, is there a tutorial about the dye-thing handy? Is it something even I could do myself, only having changed oil, the head unit and door/rear-shelf speakers?

I'd also like to tell you that our Fiat's clutch is in its last legs according to our mechanic, so that's another part that we'd possibly save money from.

Have you got any knowledge on the front foglamps? Can we get the marea front bumper with its foglamps and install them without hassle?

Basically, as far as cost is concerned, it's actually not bad at all. Everyone sells wrecks here for 500 euro for spares, because 300 euro is the money you get for recycling your car. I've seen Bravo Trofeo rims go for 200 euro. People are mad, and these fiats not that underappreciated. Motor itself would cost 300, rims 100 and so on here in Greece!

So, recapping : bigger brakes, more powerful motor, a/c fix, aluminium 15" wheels, possible seat change, possible savings from clutch, possible foglamps.

How much would they charge us for all that work, or just motor/harness job?

Thanks a ton for your time, your knowledge is very useful to me

Oh also, can we swap the abs unit over too?

Every garage should add UV dye to the AC with the oil when they fill the system.
Then if something fails UV lamps make the leaking points glow.

Trans needs to be changed as it is different engine family, also the shifter needs to be changed.
I guess yours still has cable clutch so it should work with some effort.
Also how does garage know the clutch is going? If it is the adjustment room running out, the cable might be faulty.

If yours does not have ABS, dont add it.
The instrument cluster has different connectors so you need to replace wiring under dash too or rewire it to the old one.
Your car is mk2, and the donor marea is mk1 and I suspect the body connectors don't match.

Front foglamps are a decoration, no need to wire them in. The centre switches need to be changed and a relay added if there is wiring for them.

As for the price, ask a garage if you dont want to do it yourself. Changing different drivetrain, swapping wiring loom, swapping immobilizer, brakes. My estimate comes to used 1.6 brava for less as there is much to do for it to be legal, not sure if insurance rates change.

And then there is the possibility that the engine/trans has problems,

Neverth said:

Every garage should add UV dye to the AC with the oil when they fill the system.
Then if something fails UV lamps make the leaking points glow.

Trans needs to be changed as it is different engine family, also the shifter needs to be changed.
I guess yours still has cable clutch so it should work with some effort.
Also how does garage know the clutch is going? If it is the adjustment room running out, the cable might be faulty.

If yours does not have ABS, dont add it.
The instrument cluster has different connectors so you need to replace wiring under dash too or rewire it to the old one.
Your car is mk2, and the donor marea is mk1 and I suspect the body connectors don't match.

Front foglamps are a decoration, no need to wire them in. The centre switches need to be changed and a relay added if there is wiring for them.

As for the price, ask a garage if you dont want to do it yourself. Changing different drivetrain, swapping wiring loom, swapping immobilizer, brakes. My estimate comes to used 1.6 brava for less as there is much to do for it to be legal, not sure if insurance rates change.

And then there is the possibility that the engine/trans has problems,

Click to expand...

Aha thank you that's something to consider now that summer's coming, the a/c definitely needs fixing

Yes, it does have a cable clutch. A month ago the cable snapped actually, and a bit after the garage installed a new one the car wouldnt go into gear, have trouble setting off etc. Then, the garage tightened it as much as possible, leaving us with a pretty hard clutch pedal but a working car, and they said that the clutch wont last more than few months.

Insurance doesn't change, and the swap is legal as the engine being transplanted should either have come with the car as an option or be no more than 25% more powerful, so I'm guessing there's no problem with that, I don't know about paperwork though, I'll sure have to ask for that.

That sounds like extra unneeded work, yeah, no need for ABS as it seems.

Ah well if it's going to be a lot of work to wire those in then no need to change the bumper, as we'll also need to repaint the bumper, and extra $$. Car's a nice "Azzuro Sinfonia VR" now, the Marea looks like some sort of grey

Okay, so I'll ask the garage for an estimate, check the used Marea's drivetrain, and if it's good then I'll give the project a green light. Thanks once again

Btw here's a pic of the colour (pretty rare outside of Greece afaik)

Another pic of the car :

Take the battery and the battery tray out, the clutch cable ends there.

You should be able to pull the clutch pedal up and the cable should be loose in the gearbox end. If not, the cable might need a reroute to ease some bends. Ive seen two type of cables, one attaches to the gearbox and pulls the lever, the other one attaches to the lever and pulls on the gearbox housing to move the whole cable.

Might aswell check and adjust the clutch travel while in there.
On the pedal it should be about 16cm on centre of the padal from down to the rest position.

It's the type that gets adjusted from the transmission as far as I know

Personally I don't see the point in all that work... both cars are good enough to justify some attention and expense to get them running or looking nice.

As has been said, it's a lot of effort to put an old engine and transmission from an early Marea into a late Brava. The alloy wheels on the Marea aren't even particularly nice... Plus the saloon rear seats wouldn't fit naturally although perhaps they could be modified. The Marea itself seems OK but maybe a bit tired.

I would spend money to fix the aircon wheeltrims etc on the Brava, and freshen it up a bit. The only transplant I would do on that car would be to upgrade to a 1.2 or 1.4 16V from a later scrapped Punto or Stilo.

You could buy the Marea as a project if you wanted, fix it up and sell it on for a small profit or keep it if you like it. You could take the Brava off the road and decide what to do.

I have a 1.2 Brava Formula, a late model with ABS and bigger brakes and the foglamp front bumper plus 15" alloys. I have spent much more on it than it is worth but I like keeping it going, this family or cars is becoming rarer in Britain largely due to rust after 10 - 15 years and lack of interest from owners.

Re: 1.4 16V Engine to MK2 Brava 1.2

Okay guys, I checked out the 1.4 Fire engine, and it seems like a solid unit. Same consumption as the 1.2 but far faster.

And as far as I know, it's legal to do it as well, as nor the power or the cubic capacity exceed the original motor of the car by 25%. (I need to investigate this further though).

I've scrapped the Marea idea, and I'm currently thinking of :

Finding a nice set of Fiat 15" OEM wheels, and further investigating the 1.4!

So, compatible units are : Punto 1368cc 95PS, Stilo 1368cc 103PS, Panda 1368cc 100PS

Are these the only motors I should start looking for? Are these straight swaps, no gearboxes/harness/ecu etc involved?

Thanks once again

I'd also like to ask, would a later model 1.6 fit directly? Or at least motor + transmission?

All the later "Mk2" cars became more complicated with new wiring and engine management etc for the newer emissions laws around the year 2000 (Euro 3). So swapping things around is generally more complicated, although obviously Fiat would have kept as much as possible the same between engine variants for cost and ease of production.

A later 1.6 engine and transmission should slot in OK, and maybe even that unit as fitted to a Stilo 1.6 would go in (the gearing may be different for the heavier car)..

But a clutch kit for a 1.2 Brava is really cheap in the UK on Ebay for example, so just fixing up your existing car is still a good option unless you really want more performance.

Mk2 is not always euro 3, the 98/99 update fixed wiring issues (bruning stalk switches for headlights for example) and updated engines/sensors and the outlook. 00/01 came the Euro3/OBDII update for some engines.

EDIT: Ok, "All later means" 00/01, the 1.2 with cable clutch is still not Euro3 as the update had hydraulic clutch I believe.

Yeah it's got the cable clutch, the car was delivered in 03/2000, it's got the fiat deck spoiler, it had the Grundig AD-182M Cassette Player before being changed. I don't know if any of these help.

The swap wouldn't have been done due to the going clutch really, putting a new one will cost us 150 euro in total max, so that obviously was just another thing to consider. It would be done for more performance, cause let's be honest, you can barely overtake with this thing haha

I've checked greek laws, and I've got two options :

1) Get a 1.4 16V 100hp motor and put the head from the 1.2 16v with the 1.4's camshafts ,remap the 1.2's ecu etc (I've been told this by a greek forum I also posted on, correct me if it's impossible), so that I dress up the 1.4 as the standard 1.4. Police etc will be happy, getting the car its Greek MOT-Equivalent wont be too much of a hassle if I "talk" my way through this (obviously not legal, but you ain't got no clue how many 316i's with 2.5L motors there are here, I've even seen bravos on classifieds registered as 1.2s but having 20VT motors under the bonnet,lol). This option requires just a good 1.4 motor and an ecu reflash, right?

2) Get a motor that originally came with the Brava in Greece, and also install bigger brakes etc. so that the car is up to manufacturer spec. Now this will surely be costlier, as I'll have to pay double tax due to engine size, the car will need the 1.6 brakes etc, it'll need engine swap papers and a confirmation from fiat that this motor did indeed come with bravas. So, more hassle, costlier, but a totally legal, no worries way. Which exact engines should I be looking at? e.g. '99-00 bravo/brava only, or '99-02 bravo/brava/marea etc. If we do it this way, which parts exactly are needed? Motor, brakes and probably an ecu reflash? Is there a 1.6 that is totally interchangeable with the 1.2, no harnesses etc required?

In order to help you answer my questions, do I need to check anything in the engine bay etc?
Thanks, both of you, for your time

seeing as a Marea with the right engine can be found for as little as 300e, can you not just find a cheap, reasonable brava with the 1.8 engine? Save yourself a load of hastle, and mechanics fees.

Thing is though, the main reason behind all of this hassle would be keeping this car, due to its emotional value and the fact that we're the only owners.

Now, I understand what you mean. No Brava 1.8s, even 1.6s after 2000 to be found in the classifieds, and people are mad here. They're asking 1500 euro for a '97 brava 1.6 that ain't in a very good condition. 300 euro for that marea was very low, and that's due to the fact that the car is unable to drive on the road again and unwreckable as well. Only option was to sell it for spares privately. That's why it was such a good price, and why I got interested in it in the first place.

There's no way I'm buying another Brava, it's either making this a bit quicker or buying something like a mk1 Octavia 1.8T.

So, if anyone can respond to my questions on my previous post I'd be grateful